


Cultivation Means Something Different When You're a Test Garden Intern

by OtherCat



Series: The Yiling Almanac [2]
Category: The Hidden Almanac (Podcast), 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fluff and Crack, Gen, I figure a saint makes a good cultivator, especially when she's a necromancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27865937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: In which Wei Ying settles in as the Test Garden's intern, and does not ask obvious questions about certain things.
Series: The Yiling Almanac [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968502
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Cultivation Means Something Different When You're a Test Garden Intern

_We see that you are acquiring followers. Your efforts to oppose us are in vain. You will not defeat us. We are everywhere. We have left three headless locusts at your front gate._

_The Cannibalfly Priesthood._

* * *

It's Wei Ying that spots the note and the locusts arranged around it on the way back from rambling the fields around the test garden. It's been written on a section of paper wasp nest the length and width of his first finger. 

The writing has been painstakingly scratched into the material in little wedge shapes like the tablets in Daozhang Mord's "study." (It was just a little corner of the cottage with a desk and surrounded by shelves full of books, scrolls, tablets and even lengths of knotted string.) This is how he knows it's writing at all. 

He takes it back to the Dhaozhang who sighs and crumples it up, throwing it in a bin. "They are more of a nuisance than a threat," Dhaozhang Mord says. Several of the beetles that are almost always present somewhere, and seem to be some kind of pet (maybe even spiritual insects!) of the Dhaozhang take flight and bumble out the open window. "The beetles will take care of any situation that arises in the garden."

"Like those caterpillars that were eating the peppers," Wei Ying says. He's seen the beetles drag off caterpillars and other pests twice their size. 

"Like that exactly," the Dhaozhang says, and shows him some of the tablets that have the same kind of choppy wedges that were on the leaf. Wei Ying learns about the letters and the place where they originated. He even gets to write, with a sharp stick and a piece of wet clay.

From there, he has calligraphy and he practices his reading with poetry, literature and the Dhaozhang's notes about his garden. Next is helping in the garden, and recording how things are growing or not growing, whether they like shade or sun, and what the weather is like. He's learning how important it is to know all these things, and the Dhaozhang encourages him to write down any thoughts he has. Dhaozhang Mord also teaches him math, science and the creation of wards.

There are more notes at the front gate. Wei Ying dutifully takes them to Dhaozhang Mord, who reads them with exasperation before translating them to add to the broadsheet he's writing. "But they're threatening you, Dhaozhang," Wei Ying.

"They are also paying for the privilege," Mord says.

Dhaozhang Drom sleeps in late, and goes to bed late. She is the closest Wei Ying has to a cultivation teacher. They go on long walks together and they talk and talk about all kinds of things. Sometimes they go on night hunts but the night hunts usually go like this: Dhaozhang Drom will talk to the ghost or whatever it is. If talking does not work she'll smack them with a stick, usually while still talking to them. (She calls it talking. It sounds more like shouting.) She only rarely has to kill anything. Dhaozhang Mord sometimes comes along, looking for plants for his test garden.

Dhaozhang Mord lets him make deliveries to the apothecaries (herbs) and bookstores (the broadsheet written by the Dhaozhangs) in Yiling. (The first few times with him, then on his own or with Dhaozhang Drom.) Trips to the town are always fun. Since he doesn't look so ragged anymore, it's easier to charm food vendors, or buy little toys that he usually ends up giving away to the first kid he sees. Best of all he is able to go into the bookstores. (Where he delivers the Yiling Almanac Broadsheet.) His first book purchase is a cultivation manual that Dhaozhang Drom sighs at him for getting after asking to look at it.

"This book is useless," she says. "I mean yes, if you want to learn very basic meditation it's fine, but I could write a better less confusing text on meditation, without all this extra bullshit." She walking off with it, shouting for Mord, who is in his study. "Mord, the kid got a crappy cultivation manual. Tell him I could write a better one and I'm not even a cultivator."

"Well it would certainly be better spelled," Dhaozhang Mord says as he flips through the manual.

Wei Ying cringes feeling embarrassed and stupid. "I'm sorry," he mumbles.

"Kid, _you're_ fine, it's not your fault," Dhaozhang Drom says. "I can teach you meditation." Dhaozhang Mord doesn't say anything but she immediately looks in his direction and protests, "What?! I can definitely teach meditation."

"Drom. I have never seen you meditate," Dhaozhang Mord says.

"I said I can teach it, not that I can do it," Dhaozhang replies.

Wei Ying tried hard not to laugh. It looked like it was going to be another one of those arguments-that-weren't-arguments, just the Dhaozhang talking in circles around each other, with Dhaozhang Mord sounding increasingly confused while he tried to follow Dhaozhang Drom's murky reasoning. "Dhaozhang I would like to become a cultivator, any help would be appreciated."

The Dhaozhangs do help. Dhaozhang Mord is able to acquire real cultivation manuals for him, Dhaozhang Drom does know how meditation exercises work. They work with him until he finally develops his Golden Core. The only thing they can't teach him is the sword. "Are you sure you want a sword? All that zipping around doesn't look safe," Dhaozhang Drom says.

"I really do want a sword, and not a stick for a spiritual weapon," Wei Ying says.

"Maybe musical cultivation?" Dhaozhang Drom suggests. "It's sounding more like music when you play that dizi you bought recently."

"Maybe as a second tool," Wei Ying says. "I wasn't that bad!"

"You kinda were," Dhaozhang Drom says. "I mean, you learned quickly, but first the couple days were kind of horrible."

"Weeks," Dhaozhang Mord says. Wei Ying sticks his tongue out in reply. "If you're serious about learning the sword, we can see if a sect will accept you as a student," he says.

The words inspire a giddy bubbliness inside Wei Ying, as if his Golden Core were spinning. "Really Dhaozhang?"

Dhaozhang Mord nods. "We can try."

Dhaozhang Mord sends tentative inquiries to various sects.

No one expects the Jiang Sect Master to show up at their front gate.

* * *

_Your alliance with the purple cultivators is doomed to failure. Not even they can stand against our might. We will destroy you and your arachnid allies, if you aren't caught up in their web first. We have left you an eviscerated mouse._

_The Cannibalfly Priesthood_

**Author's Note:**

> \--Wei Ying is just...not going to ask about the beetles. Or the leaves that occasionally poke out of the hoods. Just. No. 
> 
> \--Pastor Drom is a surprisingly effective cultivator. She kind of sucks at the actual meditation stuff though. 
> 
> \--No one expects the Jiang Hyperventilation (My best friends' kid is alive! Thank heaven! I must go get him NOW.) 
> 
> \--I suspect that the cannibalfly priesthood has had it in for the beetles (or whatever reason they hate Mord) for a very long time: so cuneiform


End file.
